This Team Makes Me Drink

W ell, all is right with the world: despite going an impressive 9-3 after starting the season losing 4 consecutive games, the Chargers will miss the playoffs for a fourth consecutive year.  The Chargers became the laughingstock of the NFL after the team got off to that miserable 0-4 start, highlighted by rookie kicker Younghoe Koo missing two straight game-winning field goals. Poor Koo was promptly savaged by social media as a result, and his football career is likely already over . But that was just the beginning:  Announcers, referees, commentators (mostly just Tony Romo), and even their head coach kept referring to them as the San Diego Chargers.  Every single game at the StubHub Center was invaded by opposing fans, leading Keenan Allen to remark that every home game there felt like "a road game" .  In a Veterans Day tweet, a poor social media intern attempted to crop out the words "San Diego" from a picture, but inadvertently cropped out the...

So the Japansese Babe Ruth, Shoehi Ohtani, collectively disappointed the Padres and the city of San Diego and picked the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim . A lot of fans are rightfully disappointed, bemoaning that in a year where the Chargers lost their soul and chased the money all the way to LA, SDSU basketball missed postseason play for the first time in seemingly forever, Steve Fisher retired, and All-American Rashaad Penny was horrendously ignored in Heisman voting, a snub from Ohtani- one of the most coveted Japanese imports in recent memory- especially feels like another kick to our collective groin. But guys... relax . The calculus for next year doesn't change that much. Ohtani or no Ohtani, the Padres probably still would have endured another losing season. Ohtani would've been a luxury that certainly would have at least somewhat accelerated the rebuild process, but losing out on him to the Angels does not change the fact that we have a promising young core that...

As we've all heard by now- Roy Halladay tragically passed away this week in a plane crash. Hearing that news was absolutely devastating- Halladay was similar to Tony Gwynn in that their considerable greatness on the field was surpassed only by how humble and kind they were off it off it, and as such, (aside from Jake Peavy and Trevor Hoffman) he was one of my favorite pitchers to watch growing up. I first began watching baseball in 2003- and my first memory of Roy Halladay was hearing that he had won something called the "Cy Young Award"- so I was fortunate enough to see the beginning of Halladay's dominant career. Prior to his death, there was some debate on whether or not Halladay was a first ballot Hall of Famer because his career was cut short by a torn rotator cuff- but when you look at the numbers, there really isn't a debate: Roy Halladay was the best pitcher of his 2000's .  Let's say that again: Roy Halladay was the best pitcher of...

Hey y'all- it's been a while since I've posted on here, so I wanted to share with you a brief post about this  SUPER COOL thing I got to do. Grad school life has taken up 99.999999% of my time- but in the .00000001% of corresponding free time I've had, I got a chance to check-off one of my bucket list items: going to the World Series . Admittedly, I was hoping that my first World Series game would be one where the Padres would be playing ( I can dream ), but I'll settle for Dodgers-Astros, especially considering that this series will be considered an all-time classic 20 years from now. I was lucky enough to get a ticket to Game 6 (thanks Mom!!!)- and as I walked into Dodger Stadium, I was honestly rooting the Astros to clinch their first championship. On the other hand, though, I also felt like it was only right for that series to go to a seventh and final game, considering how competitive every game that preceded Game 6 had been. Admittedly, because Ga...

Aztec football just knocked off Stanford (!!!) and the Padres are on the road to being good... eventually !!! So things are kinda looking up for the San Diego sports scene.  But the Chargers are still in LA. Which even 9 months later, still totally sucks.  "Sucks" really downplays it, actually. The Chargers in Los Angeles is wrong- in a visceral, primal sense. There is something fundamentally not right  about the Chargers playing in a soccer stadium in front of 25,000 fans, more than half of whom are rooting for the opposing team. Now, I don't hate the Chargers as a team, or the players that comprise that team.  People like Antonio Gates and Philip Rivers will always   be a part of the community in San Diego , even if the team isn't. They are forever San Diego  Chargers- playing their last 2-3 seasons in Los Angeles doesn't diminish that. I hate Dean Spanos.  I hate that Dean tried to exploit the taxpayers of this city to ...

The MLB is putting on their first-ever Players Weekend, featuring unique jerseys for all 30 teams- the Padres iteration of which is proudly displayed at the top of this article. I think we can all agree that normally, the Padres uniforms are painfully boring, so this is a nice change of pace.... these are certainly anything but boring. Are they good jerseys? Eh..... not really. I'm no fashionista, but the blue and yellow definitely clashes, and they're concerningly identical to what the Brewers will roll out for Players Weekend.  But they're certainly not boring. And historically, "not boring" has been in very short supply for this franchise over its history. So... all things considered, even though the color of the yellow hats have an unsettling resemblance to urine ( could you imagine those with an all brown jersey? lol #poop #jokes), I feel pretty good about how these uniforms look. Now, I know you may be thinking to yourself,  "Well, those j...

The trade deadline came and went- and much to my surprise, Brad Hand is still a Padre. There were so many "Hand" puns to choose from for the title, and after much deliberation, I settled on the poker-related one because I thought it seemed apt for today. BUT... as soon as I started writing, I felt oddly compelled to incorporate the runner-ups into the prose of my article somehow. However, to spare you, the valued reader, from a barrage of subpar wordplay, I'll just list them below and get them out of the way now. Let me know which ones are your favorite! Apparently an arm and a leg is not worth a Hand. AJ Preller decides not to Hand away his best tradable asset for nothing. Is one in the Hand worth two in the bush? AJ Preller rebuffs offers from rival GMs.  Raise your Hand if you thought the Padres wouldn't trade anyone today. Were the Padres demands for a top prospect today a bit heavy Handed? Padres take a Hands-off approach to the deadline today. ...

Hard to believe that I've been writing this blog for an entire year now! It's even harder to believe that, of all things, I felt compelled to start This Team Makes Me Drink because I vehemently disagreed with Melvin Upton, Jr. being traded - that hot take ( Melvin Upton goes to the 6!!!) didn't age too well. I genuinely thought that I would write a couple posts, get bored, and completely forget about ever writing about sports again- but alas, here we are, a full trip around the sun later- and what better way to celebrate TTMMD turning a year old than by going to a Padre game ? And what a celebration it was. The Padres won, 7-5, splitting the series with the Mets, and more importantly, allowing me to experience my first Padres W in over two calendar years. My thoughts/stray observations from my experience are below, but first, a few acknowledgments: I'd like to give a big shoutout to my Mom being my #1 reader and for unfailingly promoting this blog on all of h...

Aaaaaaaand just like that, AJ Preller has made his first major move as the July 31st trade deadline looms, sending pitchers Trevor Cahill, Brandon Mauer, and Ryan Buchter to the Royals in exchange for pitchers Travis Wood and Matt Strahm, and prospect Esteury Ruiz. These are some of the more popular members of the big league roster getting moved, and Cahill, Mauer, and Buchter were all important contributors to the Padres pitching staff. Resultantly, some fans on Twitter are somewhat upset (" WHO IS GOING 2 CLOSE NOW??? THX AJ", as one particularly articulate fan put it), but honestly, who really cares? None of these guys really had any long term future with the Padres. Brandon Mauer wasn't even that good . Trevor Cahill was probably going to sign somewhere else in the offseason. And Ryan Buchter was just an average reliever- Darren Balsley's literally been growing those on the Reliver Tree that's been planted in the Padres bullpen since 2003 (bet you did...

The 2017 All Star game has come and gone. Tomorrow, we're back to baseball- and the chase to the playoffs is on. Quite unsurprisingly... the Padres are not in that chase. Which is fine and expected. The Padres finished the first half of the season at 38-50 and ya know what?  We aren't in last place! How exciting is that?  Even better is the fact that last place is instead occupied the despicable Giants, who unlike the Padres, came in to the season with high expectations. Mediocrity looks good on you, Giants fans! Besides the win-loss column, how is the 2017 actually going for the Padres? Let's take a look at the good and the bad. The Good: Brad Hand Raise your hand if you thought Brad Hand would be the Padres All Star this year. *waits* Okay then! Brad Hand has been very good this year as Padres' 8th inning option- you really got to give him a...... hand  for the job he's done. I really hand to get that pun off my chest. But I d...

Toronto Blue Jays closer Roberto Osuna recently announced that he's been dealing with an "anxiety issue" and will miss some time as a result. "I really don't know how to explain it. I just feel anxious. I feel like I'm lost a little bit right now," Osuna said in an interview, "I'm just a little bit lost right now. " On a very slight level, I can  relate.  I obviously don't play Major League Baseball- I didn't even play in high school.  In fact, my baseball career ended when I was around 11. I was a genuinely terrible player. Like, -3 WAR bad. Skills-wise, I wasn't an offensively bad player by any means. In practice, I could make good contact with the ball, catch pop-ups and field grounders. Maybe my running tool wasn't the best (I'd probably grade myself as a 40 on a 20-80 scale for Little Leaguers), but I was able to do all the things any seemingly competent Little Leaguer could. Until gam...

MLB draft #szn is upon us. The Padres, for the first time since 2009, are drafting third overall. Having such a high draft position is somewhat of a rare situation for the Padres. Considering how much of the media and the causal fan consider the Padres to be one of the most consistently bad teams in baseball, they've only drafted in the top five- signifying the worst of the worst- six times since 1988. Over their last 30 draft picks in the first round, their average draft position has been 14.6, which is a pretty impressive achievement of baseball mediocrity. Of course, the Padres' track record with top 5 draft picks hasn't exactly been stellar. With the exception of Andy Benes ( who ranks 5th all-time in WAR among Padres pitchers ), all of their top 5 draft picks failed to make a significant impact at the major league level. For reference, their most recent third overall pick, Donovan Tate, is now a walk-on quarterback at the University of Arizona . The Padres are ...

If you haven't been paying attention to Padres baseball- you probably should. Which, I suppose, a fair amount of you are guilty of; they haven't exactly been playing the best baseball this season. The Padres are almost universally ranked at (or near) the bottom of every major power ranking , and they sit in the basement of the competitive NL West, after all. Well, time to get out from under the rock. The Padres have won five straight, and swept the Chicago Cubs- the reigning World Series champions. Watch that above video if you still don't believe me. Yeah, me too, Patrick. Me too.  (See what I did with the rock reference earlier? Somebody give me an award! If you were born before 1980 and reading this, that pink starfish looking character you can see above lives under a rock. Hope that clears things up.) Anyways, this "winning" thing probably isn't sustainable for the rest of the season. More than likely, the Padres will regress t...

So.......... Raise your hand if you thought that 10 games in to the season, the Padres would be at .500? *waits patiently* Okay, now that we've gotten that out of the way: THE PADRES ARE AT .500! Not only that, but we've won two of our first three series- one of which was against the Giants, who have more or less dominated the NL West this decade. This is the same team that ESPN could not find a single reason to have hope for before the season kicked off. They couldn't be more wrong- this team is overflowing with reasons to hope.  First off, Manny Margot. The man looks like an absolute star in the making- before, we knew that he could be a first division regular easily. The only thing missing was the power- if it developed, he'd be a bona fide five-tool star. And boy, does it look like it's developing. He's currently tied for eighth in the league with three home runs, and has also shown impressive gap power.  Even though small sample size i...

The Opening Day roster 2017 Padres has been set- and boy, is it....... unique? I don't know how I would describe it. I mean, for starters, all three Rule Five draft picks made the team, and Christian Bethancourt is a pitcher now. So that happened. Anyways, let's take a look (via rostersource.com ): Starting Lineup Travis Jankowski, LF Manuel Margot, CF Wil Myers, 1B Yangervis Solarte, 2B Hunter Renfroe, RF Ryan Schimpf, 3B Austin Hedges, C Erick Aybar, SS The starting lineup is undoubtedly the most exciting part of this roster. After all, they'll be very proficient at the two most exciting things in baseball: hitting home runs and stealing bases. Everyone in the middle of the lineup- Myers, Solarte, Renfroe, and Schimpf, (maybe even Hedges too!!!)- has demonstrated an ability to hit the long ball- this could be one of the Padres most powerful offenses in recent memory. The top of the lineup (Jankowski, Margot, and Myers) will also be very fun to w...